Should I quit my job to play poker professionally?

[DeaconBlue]

I'm amazed by the number of folks here who answered without actually considering the question. Only you can really decide. Only you really, if you're honest with yourself, know how good you really are and wether it would be a good idea foryou to persue that as a career.

[praise_gibbs]

The worst thing one can do is not to try, to be aware of what one

wants and not give in to it, to spend years in silent hurt wondering if

something could have materialized - never knowing.

Jim Rohn

[Tulane Skins Fan]

I play in a game with a couple people, and one of them did quit his job as an attorney to do play online professionally. I asked him if that was the dream, and he said after 6 months he was pretty tired of it. And while he was still making money, he said it was more work than he ever thought it would be.

[unsonny]

Keep up the good work!!!!

MacDonalds will find i new Drive-Thru Tech......follow your dreams

cant wait to see you on ESPN!!!!1

[Skinned]

Keep up the good work!!!!

MacDonalds will find i new Drive-Thru Tech......follow your dreams

cant wait to see you on ESPN!!!!1

That's a sick photo. The guy is 12-tabling and has a hell of a setup. I have a hard enough time concentrating on 2 games :laugh:

My brother is between jobs and he is an awesome player. He grinds out (4-tabling) the $35 SNG's on Stars and is on the leaderboards as well. With all of that, he struggles to make enough consistently for rent and bills. The variance and beats he takes are ridiculous. There are tons of people who make a living now at poker, but it requires the occasional huge MTT score or the ability to play all day at higher limits grinding it out. :2cents:

[SUNSTONE]

My observation is that even if you manage to stay afloat, it's a hollow existence. I've seen professional poker players on TV who openly say they have come to hate poker, and would never play again if they didn't have to.

In addition, you are taking money from other people. There is no end product in gambling. You are simply defrauding other people out of what they have, with their permission.

Yeah the game can get boring, it becomes a grind.

I've played all my life off and on. I use to be a pro full time until the fish dried up.

I wasn't going to play poker, I was trying to get an online team together for videogames and try to win contests for money. But I couldn't find a dedicated team.

So after going through team after team, I said screw it I'm going to play poker again. And now 3 months later here I am.

My buddy thinks I should tour the big events and try to cash in on a big tourny.

I told him I would retire if I hit one of those events, and take that money to make movies.

[boofMcboof]

Some advice.

Limit your time playing poker. Don't do it professionally. It's a dead-end world. You can also be one hell of a poker player and not make much money. I know plenty of them. The fact is some people are luckier than others during a lifetime and in that world, you really see the underbelly of society; degeneratates, losers, embezellers. Limit your participation with them. It'll be better for your soul.

I learned how to deal and play poker professionally before I hit 21. My mother was a poker dealer and I was lucky to run in to an old-school guy who's whole life was built on poker, a lot of it on the shady side who taught me everything except the ins and outs of cheating. I dealt poker for 2.5 years to save up money for school. I'm also one of the best poker players I know of and that includes a lot of the schmucks you see on tv even if I am a little rusty . . .

Tournaments are the worst way to try and make money. I don't know if you know what goes on but for major tournaments the big name players all have feeders. They stake others in the tournaments who if they happen to sit at the same table, will discreetly feed chips to them. Then there are people like me who have a group of friends who make a deal before hand, whoever has the least amount of chips should try feeding it to the other and split any winnings afterwards.

Tournies are double-edged sword, if you do well in tournaments you get more fame and notoriety which is the last thing you want in big time live-action games. You don't want multiple players gunning for you. You also have to report the winnings to the IRS, something you don't do when playing live-action games. The best players in the world are guys you've never heard of, playing live action games in Vegas and California.

The most important skill in poker is money management, not reading other players or not giving away tells. There are so many facets of poker, from the psychology part of it to controlling the table to setting up bets and traps. This stuff you don't learn playing online. If you think it's just a numbers game you're sorely mistaken. There's so much to learn about poker that if I were you I wouldn't do it full time just yet.

You are playing the right game though. Live action no-limit games are the best way to make money in poker. If you have a hand, you can protect it.

Having cash on hand everyday was the harddest thing to get over once I left. I haven't played much since poker's huge resurgence. There are times that I miss it and a lot of times that I don't.

:2cents:

[jbooma]

I've been winning a lot lately, and the laws have changed here in florida for the land casinos.

Now you can play a 1-2$ no limit game.

That game is super easy with loads of fish and over aggressive bluffing idiots.

My first week (short week) I'm up 650$.

Then there is my online game.

I've won more than 6000$ (all profit) in the past 2 or 3 months.

I'm ranked 36th on Ultimatebet.com, and I have the second highest winning percentage I have ever seen on that site.

I win 3% of all tournys I enter, with an average field of over 300.

My job is totally in the way.

It is your life so do what you think, remember about gambling you can play well for a long time and then you can play crappy

If you make enough then yes but don't count on it all the time.

How does it work online? Meaning are you allowed to take the earnings or is it stuck because of the online gambling law?

[SkinsNoles21]

My job sucks, it's only a serving job, I can get another job.

The money I have can carry me for months.

I'm going to cut my hours back, and go from there.

If I keep winning and build a nest, I'll quit and go full time poker.

I don't have a family or anyone else depending on me.

I think you should have said it was a serving job from the beginning, your responses might have been alot different.

[jbooma]

I think you should have said it was a serving job from the beginning, your responses might have been alot different.

bingo

[CurseReversed]

Poker is a great game... untill you have to play it to make money, then it SUCKS.

You would be surprised how quickly you get absolutely sick of it when you are playing for more then a few hours a day.

[Siven]

No, you shouldn't. Gambling is no way to make a living, even if you are good at it, it's not a secure job. You have to continue winning to pay your bills. One bad streak, and you're finished.

If you're really good at it, use it to supplement your income.

[Riggins77]

I've been winning a lot lately, and the laws have changed here in florida for the land casinos.

Now you can play a 1-2$ no limit game.

That game is super easy with loads of fish and over aggressive bluffing idiots.

My first week (short week) I'm up 650$.

Then there is my online game.

I've won more than 6000$ (all profit) in the past 2 or 3 months.

I'm ranked 36th on Ultimatebet.com, and I have the second highest winning percentage I have ever seen on that site.

I win 3% of all tournys I enter, with an average field of over 300.

My job is totally in the way.

YES. I would recommend you quit your job within the next two weeks and focus on poker.

[Kosher Ham]

Why not. You suck as a waiter.

I am still waiting for my soda refill, and side of ranch.

[Thiebear]

Win something that could replace:

your day job.

expenses: hotel/travel/food etc.

AND THEN:

see about quitting the day job or moving to part time...

[DjTj]

I've been winning a lot lately, and the laws have changed here in florida for the land casinos.

Now you can play a 1-2$ no limit game.

That game is super easy with loads of fish and over aggressive bluffing idiots.

My first week (short week) I'm up 650$.

Then there is my online game.

I've won more than 6000$ (all profit) in the past 2 or 3 months.

I'm ranked 36th on Ultimatebet.com, and I have the second highest winning percentage I have ever seen on that site.

I win 3% of all tournys I enter, with an average field of over 300.

My job is totally in the way.

Just got back from a weekend in Vegas so this kind of stuff is on my mind ...

In college, I was grinding it out online for a while, and I knew many people doing the same. I also think the $1-2 no limit games are very soft. There's definitely no easier table in Tunica.

However, a few months of results is pretty meaningless (and one week doesn't mean a thing). No matter how good you are, there are big fluctuations and you are guaranteed to have losing weeks, and sometimes several losing weeks in a row. The standard deviation is usually about ten times your average win rate per hour, so you have to have a bankroll that can absorb the losses when they come.

If you have one of the highest winning rate on UltimateBet in just a couple months, it doesn't mean that you're the necessarily the best poker player the site has ever seen - it means you're a good poker player who has had one of the luckiest few months the site has ever seen. Don't expect your income to be the same as you've been getting because the luck won't last forever. That $6,000 has to be considered the top end of what you can expect (if you break it down by hourly rate), unless of course you start moving up limits.

Another consideration is that the games are usually softest on weekends, and if you quit your day job and start playing on weekday afternoons, you'll be sitting at tables with other semi-pros like yourself and a bunch of retirees. There are a lot fewer of the loose aggresive maniacs during "real job" hours. As you get into the fall and winter, the crowd will also probably start to thin a little more as the tourist traffic slows down. The extra hours you gain by quitting a day job aren't usually as lucrative as the hours you're already putting in.

Anyways, from the way this thread has gone, it sounds like you have more or less made your decision to do it - my advice would be not to expect huge winnings to just start rolling in ... manage your money carefully and don't get frustrated if you get on a losing streak - there's nothing worse for the bankroll than going on tilt and throwing good money after bad.

[SkinInsite]

Yes, what's the worst that could happen:whoknows:

[nace14]

if you are playing $1/2, you can't play professionally. Try moving up to some bigger games before you even think about it again.

i don't mean to sound rough, but it's a totally different game. you flat out can't rely on the 1/2 game to judge your talent level. last time i was in A.C. for a weekend, i walked out of the taj 1/2 game friday night (well saturday morning) up $900 in about 4 hours, the next day i spent the entire day at the higher tables and only ended up walking away with $1100 for the weekend. strategy changes and people are better then you think.

[#98QBKiller]

Nope.

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